Page 15 of Double or Nothing
When I don’t react to her first slap, she slaps me again full force. I stand perfectly still, realizing she’s hitting me, but not registering the pain. I won’t stop her or move away. I’ll take whatever she dishes out.
Suddenly, her beautiful brown eyes flood with fresh tears, and they overflow down her cheeks. My heart squeezes tight at the sight, and I can barely breathe.
Why is she crying?
I’ve never seen Jade cry. Even when we kidnapped her, she never showed weakness.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she screams at me. “Why aren’t you stopping me? Or protecting your face? Damn it, Vulcan! Say something! What is wrong with you?”
“I’m sorry,” I manage to say. “I failed you.”
“Failed me?” she yells. “What the hell are you talking about?” She whirls around and points at the man missing half his head, still sitting tied to the chair. “Him? You think I give a fuck who pulled the trigger to take him out? I care about you, dammit! You’re scaring the crap out of me, and I’m so damn mad at you right now. I can’t believe you played Russian Roulette with real bullets. What the actual fuck, Vulcan! What’s going on in your head?”
Jade screams at me, her voice raw with emotion. Her anger and fear fill the air like a thick fog, suffocating and inescapable. My own shame mixes with her emotions, creating a bitter cocktail of misery that threatens to overwhelm me.
She chokes on a sob when I don’t answer, and I can’t take it any longer. I was willing to let her punch me all night, but her tears are more than I can handle. They’re twisting up my insides and all I want to do is make them stop.
I’ll do anything.
I reach for Jade and grab her at the same moment she reaches out for me. Our bodies collide with an almost magnetic force, her softness melting against me. The warmth of her in my arms is both comforting and agonizing, a stark reminder of what I stand to lose if I can’t fix things between us.
Jade clings desperately to me, her body shaking as she sobs. Wrapping my arms tightly around her, I lean down to press my face against her neck, inhaling deeply to drink in her sweet smell.
I hug her tightly, making a silent vow to myself and to her. I will do whatever it takes to protect her and to prove my worth once more.
In that moment, the world around us seems to fade away, leaving only the two of us in our shared hell. Time seems to stand still as we cling to one another, our hearts beating in unison.
“Forgive me, baby,” I mutter hoarsely into her warm skin. “I vowed to protect you, and I didn’t.”
She wraps her fingers tightly in my hair and holds me close. “The only thing you need to be sorry about is almost killing yourself. Nothing else matters, Vulcan. If you die, you’ll take me with you. I’m so scared by what you did. Please, please swear to me you’ll never play Russian Roulette again ever. I’ll never ask another thing from you if you’ll only promise me this.”
I draw back my head to look down at her. Tracing her tears with my thumb, I wipe them away, one by one.
“That’s why you’re mad at me?” I ask. “For playing Russian Roulette?”
Her teary eyes grow troubled. “You weren’t playing,” she replies. “And it wasn’t a harmless game. Those were real bullets, and you almost killed yourself. Promise me right now, you’ll never play that game again.” She grips my head in both hands to force me to gaze into her eyes. “I need to hear you say it. Please, Vulcan. Do this for me. I can’t lose you now.”
Slowly, I nod back at her. “I won’t do that again. I give you my word.”
She lets out another sob, and I bury my head in her hair. “Please don’t cry, baby. You’re killing me. I know I fucked up. Don’t cry. I’ll make this right, I swear. Tell me what I need to do to fix this.”
She sniffles and pulls back to wipe her face. “I’m holding you to your word. I need you to stay alive. We just found each other. You can’t leave me now.”
“I’ll never leave you,” I tell her. “Never.”
“Okay, I believe you,” she says, still sniffling. “This conversation is far from over, but we’ve got work to do. The sun will be up in hours, and we need to get rid of Ivan.”
She reluctantly steps out of my arms and walks over to Kit. “Are you okay?” she asks him, gently rubbing his arm. “You saved us all and I’m so very grateful to you.” Wrapping her arms around his waist, she gives him a big hug. “Thank you for killing Ivan and stopping that stupid game. Seven told me what happened.”
“I’m okay,” he says, holding her against his chest and stroking her hair. “He deserved to die, and I don’t regret killing him. And you don’t need to thank me. It was either him or Vulcan, so there wasn’t a choice.”
“You’re really okay with killing someone?” she asks, tilting her head to look up to search his face. “You wouldn’t harm anything.”
“I don’t believe in harming or killing defenseless animals,” he replies. “My beliefs and rules don’t apply to evil humans. To be honest, it felt good to take him out. If his death means there’s one less person in this world who wants to harm you, then so be it. We didn’t have any idea of where you were or what was going on at the time. The only thing I knew was that he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell us anything useful. Ivan had to die. It was the only way. He was a threat to you alive.”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have gone back to Platinum without you. I fully intended to be back by the time you returned home. I found Natasha and they wouldn’t let me leave.”
“How did you get away then?” he asks.
